politics

In the State of the Union address on Tuesday evening, President Obama touched on several issues that might have pricked the ears of his young supporters who were instrumental in getting him re-elected.

According to CIRCLE, young black and Hispanic women provided the strongest support for President Obama among young voters in 2012. Young black male voters also heavily supported the president, although more of them voted Republican than in 2008.

Living in the Bay Area, it’s not unlikely that some of your neighbors end up making it big. Our area is known for inspiring and supporting talent in many fields. For instance, local comedians Nato Green and W. Kamau Bell have been cracking up the Bay for years, with a comedy tour called “Laughter Against the Machine.

It’s been nearly 100 years since Congress authorized the City of San Francisco to build the O’Shaughnessy Dam in Yosemite National Park. This is the dam that turned Hetch Hetchy Valley into Hetch Hetchy reservoir, providing water and electricity to San Francisco and surrounding cities. John Muir and a emerging Sierra Club fought against this project proposal for nearly 12 years before Congress passed the Raker Act in 1913, giving San Francisco the authority to build the dam, power generators, and delivery system to the Bay Area.

Youth might not be going to the polls in vast numbers, but that doesn’t mean they don’t care about making change in their communities, and in the national issues that affect their lives.

According to a recent study by the MacArthur Research Network on Youth and Participatory Politics, youth are actively expressing their opinions on social and political issues through blogs and other social media.